Mike Lee: Wide Awake

Mike Lee isn’t your
typical worship
leader. From his
experience with mixed
martial arts to his resonant
gifts, Lee is a young talent to
watch. Propelled by a
successful Kickstarter
campaign, the burgeoning
songwriter and worship
leader for Liquid Church in
Fort Wayne, Ind., recently
released his first EP,
Awakening Hearts.

CCM: I’d love to know a
bit of your own musical
background. Were your
parents musical? Did you
start learning to play an
instrument early on?

MIKE: I definitely come
from a musical family. My
uncles were involved in
gospel quartets back in the
‘60s. My dad was a bit more
rebellious. As a teenager he
was the front man of a band
that played in local bars.
He was a 17-zippers-on-his-leather-jacket, crashed-his-motorcycle-on-a-wild-ride
kind of guy. He was the
one who taught me my first chords when I was 14.
Honestly, I started playing
music to be like my dad, but
I didn’t really learn to play
until I encountered the Lord
about a year after that when
I was 15. I also got into a
little piano when I started
writing.

CCM: Do you remember
the first time you ever
led worship at a church
gathering?

MIKE: I did a lot of informal
leading almost immediately
as soon as I knew enough
chords to play a song. I
led fairly regularly for a
college group at Pathway
Community Church when I
was 16. There, I was trained
by an amazing man named
A.J. Joseph, who introduced
me to spontaneous worship.
It changed my life. Probably
the most impactful worship
experience I had as a young
worship leader was the first
time I led at Liquid Church in
2006. This experience shook
my understanding of worship
because the people sang so
whole-heartedly, and they were so in love with Jesus.
Their harmony and passion
brought me to places of
joyful laughing when there
were moments I couldn’t
sing! That was definitely a
first for me.

CCM: It’s interesting that you
also co-own a gym and work
with mixed martial arts. Does that segment of your
life influence your music at
all? Or vice versa?

MIKE: I haven’t really
thought about the influence
that my coaching has on
my music, as both music
and mixed martial arts
are passions of mine. My
fighters know that I sing,
and they all have heard me do so a little bit. My band
members know that I train
fighters, and some of them
have come in for a little bit
of training. I will say this:
it is weirder to punch my
guitarist in the head than it
is to sing around a fighter.
I think both fighting and
leading worship have taught
me things and influenced me in ways that affect every
aspect of my life. They
are both part of who God
created me to be.